


In This World, They Don't Say 'Swyve'

by BadgerFox



Category: Inkheart (2008), Tintenwelt-Trilogie | Inkheart Trilogy - Cornelia Funke
Genre: Goths, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:17:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6323704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadgerFox/pseuds/BadgerFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after being summoned into a world he hates, Dustfinger is performing at a Medieval re-enactment, when he finds himself – unbelievably – sharing his feelings of homesickness with an understanding new acquaintance. Rants, reflections, sympathy, misconceptions, and orgasms ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This World, They Don't Say 'Swyve'

“I don’t usually _do_ this,” the boy blinked, raising his eyebrows.

“What do you mean?” Dustfinger blinked right back at him from his car’s passenger seat.  
The soft black stuff about the boy’s eyes creased as he grinned nervously, “Erm...well, this. Inviting someone I only met this morning home with me. It’s not my style at all, actually.”  
Dustfinger silently wondered whether to be honoured or to take offence. _Either he thinks me terribly special...or he’s having second thoughts. Typical. I should’ve known he didn’t really want me._

Dustfinger sighed, the loneliness settling in with crushing familiarity once more. He began eyeing up the local buildings out of the stationery car window. _Any comfortable doorways to sleep in, in this part of Leipzig?_ It was a warm May night, at least. No moonlight, only these horrible ‘electickle’ street-lamps, but fortunately the boy’s flat had been located in a leafy, quiet part of the city where people might let him sleep him peace instead of kicking him.

And yes, all-right, the would-be lover wasn’t a boy. He had a sort of boyish look to him, but he was well into his twenties, not that much younger than Dustfinger himself, and studying at Leipzig University. A ‘fifth-year medicalstew dent’ (whatever that was) and his name was Otto. Five years Dustfinger had been living in this awful, noisy, rotten world now, and he’d quickly learned never to mention that where he came from, fourteen-year-olds were allowed to marry each other. It hurt, being made to see that your own country didn't necessarily do things correctly.

So nowadays, he kept his past to himself. Everything. The private things, the general things, the things he missed so dreadfully they made his soul ache, the things-that-could-maybe-be-passed-off-as-experiences-from-this-world-if-he-changed-all-the-place-names, the sexual things, the memories, the jokes, the achievements...

Until today.  
  
“People think us Goths are all sluts,” Otto said suddenly, breaking the silence in the car, “That we’re all having Satanic orgies with ten sacrificial virgins on our living-room floor or whatever, or we pick up idiots who think they’re vampires at kinky clubs and go home and drink each other’s blood out of the Ikea beakers. Or tie each other up and fuck to Cradle of Filth, reciting terrible gothic poetry all the way. But...really? If anyone expected that from me?” he leant closer to Dustfinger with another nervous, beautiful smile, “They would be _so_ disappointed.”  
“Um. That’s all right...?” Dustfinger smiled, having only understood about half of that.  
“Also,” Otto added thoughtfully, shoving his car door open, “Cradle of Filth are surprisingly difficult to fuck to.”

As far as Dustfinger could tell, Otto was warning him that even though they’d spent the last half-hour effectively consuming each other’s faces in front of a hundred people, he was really a tame, modest, virginal sort of man.  
_Well, I’m not,_ Dustfinger thought. The Motley Folk were very broad-minded. He hadn’t been unusual amongst them in having no preference for gender. In fact, he understood the boy’s point perfectly. _Back in Lombrica, people saw us performers as outside the normal rules of society. Everyone wanted to brag that they’d bedded a ‘wild’, ‘enchanted’ fire-dancer._ Before Roxane, Dustfinger simply hadn’t seen much point in turning down offers from people he liked the look of.

Now, Dustfinger gleefully slammed the door on the wretched little wheeled box. _Gods, I hate cars._ Otto locked it with a _beeep-eep!_ of an ‘electickle’ object in his hand, remarking, “Us Goths are all secretly wallflowers, you see. When you have turquoise hair and shoes eight inches tall, you don’t need to _say_ anything attention-grabbing.”

But Otto didn’t have turquoise hair or shoes eight inches tall. Dustfinger looked him up and down again in frank lust, standing here in the leafy midnight street. He had clever olive-skinned hands, and laughing dark eyes, and some silvery adornment through one ear that Dustfinger couldn’t figure out but liked anyway, and shiny little black boots, and hair longer than Dustfinger’s own which he wore in these thin black tubes made entirely of tangles. Lock-something, he’d called them earlier, and joked that the ‘Tumbling Warriors of Social Justice’ (or something...?) couldn’t yell at him on the ‘Inter Net’ for cultural appropriation because he was ‘by Rachel’ anyway. The hair things were very elegant, for things made of tangles, and smelled only of faint woodsmoke from the campfire earlier.

They stepped about the car, and then Otto’s breath was warm on his cheek again, face tipped up at him (he wasn’t especially short, but Dustfinger _was_ tall). Whatever anxiety he might’ve been feeling, he had apparently decided that returning to their earlier kisses would calm it. _And what kisses they are_. Dustfinger’s lips found Otto’s in the dark street, and for all his eagerness, he began unhurriedly, still tasting the honey mead and home-brewed ale from around the campfire earlier. The other fellow’s lips were orange-segment full, soft, his tongue clever and – _o yes_ \- slow. Dustfinger was as thorough with his mouth as the boy was with his, and sensed he liked it. No, he definitely liked it. The boy was demonstrative as hell, moaning shamelessly into his mouth. It wasn’t that he lacked all reserve or modesty, just that his flesh was sensitive and he didn’t mind showing it. _O, I could kiss him, and only kiss him, all the night long!_

 _Not really,_ Dustfinger corrected himself immediately, _it’s just a nice romantic thought. Really, I had rather swyve him into the mattress._

Then he remembered vaguely that they said ‘fuck’ instead of ‘swyve’ here, and that if (or it seemed more likely when) they arrived at a mattress, he must remember not to use any weird Lombrican words in the heat of the moment. He could manage in general conversations, these days, but he’d never bedded anyone from this world and understood they talked about sex differently. They didn’t say ‘tumble’ or ‘bed’ or ‘swyve’, they said ‘fuck’ or ‘screw’ or ‘bang’ or ‘smash’ (all of which sounded needlessly violent to Dustfinger’s ears). ‘Making love’ to someone here did not mean singing-love-ballads and treating them kindly, he didn’t have a ‘prick’, ‘yard’ or ‘staff’, but a ‘cock’ instead, and ‘harlot’ did not mean an arrogant young man anymore...His thoughts broke off abruptly, too absorbed in Otto’s fine mouth to remember anything else.

It was a good few minutes later before he realised, in deep amusement, that if anyone in the nearby flats happened to look out their curtains, the cockstand on him was probably just about visible from across the street. Otto’s narrow black trousers – _‘jeans’, I think they are called ‘jeans’? -_ were doing a much better job of concealing the issue than his own loose-fitting, hempen trousers. _I’m supposed to be embarrassed or something, aren’t I?_ Dustfinger realized, knowing full well he wasn’t. When you slept in a small tent you shared with seven other travelling players, and almost nobody had their own private room in Lombrican home, it was sort of pointless to go around being shocked at people’s bodies. _Everyone saw everything anyway._

At Otto pressing himself tight against Dustfinger’s body, Dustfinger’s heart jolted. _I’m yours tonight,_ he thought decisively, _for almost any game you want to play_. The loneliness had grown unbearable. No human creature could be expected to live as he did now, surely? Following Capricorn and Basta about, watching Silvertongue at a distance in case the magician ever changed his mind, roaming from place to place and never fitting in anywhere. _I can’t stand it any longer,_ he thought grimly, _I just can’t bloody stand it. And tonight, if I am lucky, I won’t have to_. He was still kissing very slowly along the boy’s tidy jawline, making him tip back his head with a merry, tortured groan (if you’re going to bed someone, at least do it properly and don’t rush) when Otto caught at his hand.

“Come on. Inside. Fourth floor, and don’t trip over my cats on the way in.”  
Dustfinger did not need told twice.

It felt like they’d been teasing each other for hours. Because the kissing - before the car - had been the kind of kissing you weren’t supposed to do in public. Kissing a lot. Kissing beautifully, hungrily, slowly...filthily.

Dustfinger had not planned on being kissed. Not at all. It had just been so warm and lulling, beside Otto at the campfire at the Mediaeval Fayre, that it had seemed like a good idea. The atmosphere was the closest thing Dustfinger knew to his own world. It was evening, and all the bloody tourists had gone home. Just the re-enactors and the folk in black left, all telling stories and singing and passing drinking-horns of mead about. The folk in black – they had something to do with this word ‘Goth’ he kept hearing, Dustfinger felt – had been mostly friendly, liberal-minded sorts, and Dustfinger didn’t mind their company. _Something to do with a music festival in the next field, apparently? Not that all those horrible banging noises sound anything like music!_ he’d thought. Otto had arrived at the Mediaeval Fayre very early with friends that morning, from the music festival, and had stopped to applaud Dustfinger’s rehearsing a new juggling trick.

And he’d apologised when Dustfinger was rude to him, snapping that it was only a bloody practise (because Dustfinger immediately noticed the boy’s desirability and hated how lonely it made him feel). And he’d offered Dustfinger half his blackcurrant wine as an apology. And chatted with Dustfinger for three hours straight. And invited Dustfinger to see a favourite set of music players with his friends. And told his friends to go on without him when Dustfinger had ungraciously refused. And laughingly agreed to Dustfinger’s offering to show him how to juggle...and been unable to stop blushing whenever Dustfinger touched him to correct his hands. Then so-very-casually mentioned he didn’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend at present. Actually, by that point, Dustfinger had felt comfortable enough to scare Otto:  
“Yeah? Well, I _do_ have a boyfriend. He’s the burly seven-foot-tall blacksmith over at the armourer’s tent there, and he’s been watching you flirt and make off-colour jokes about balls for two hours. He really isn’t happy about it.”  
The look on Otto’s face was priceless.

It felt the first time Dustfinger had laughed, properly laughed with a friend, in what felt like years.

Then, “I miss the fairies,” Dustfinger had muttered unthinkingly, sitting beside Otto about the campfire later.  
“Do we not count?” Otto laughed, inexplicably.  
And somehow they’d started kissing. Dustfinger hadn’t known how to stop without offending Otto - or dying of deprivation. He hadn’t kissed anyone but Roxane in years and years. Actually, he hadn’t kissed _anyone at all_ in years and years. It had felt...unbelievable. To be paid such close attention, to have someone listen to him and look at him and touch him, instead of seeing only the limbs that moved juggling balls about for the sake of everyone’s amusement, or the sleeping body you stepped over in a doorway. Distracted by Otto’s glorious mouth, and the feel of his small hands very shyly moving south, he’d heard a couple of giggles and _awwww!_ s from the folk about the circle, but hadn’t realised it was directed at them. Not until he saw from the corner of one eye a great swaggering bear of a re-enactor standing up, belly spilling from his doublet, and drunkenly barking at them:

“Don’t shove it down my throat, fags! Get a room!”

Well.

Dustfinger – yet again - hadn’t understood the sudden appalled hush around the circle. In Lombrica, wealthy people shouted at you or aimed sharp objects at you with far less provocation than mere kisses. But Otto had leapt to his feet, lovely cheeks flushed with fury, and told the fellow where to shove his ‘hogophogig bull’s shit’ (whatever that was). By the calls of support about the circle, he seemed to have done something brave. Dustfinger, by now hopelessly enchanted with him, could only be all the more impressed.

Unfortunately, the drunken man’s insult had spoiled Dustfinger’s plan, which had been to ask Otto if he wanted to follow him to the nearest empty tent and carry on. It didn’t seem terribly likely that Otto would say ‘no’. Dustfinger would’ve said ‘nearest dark corner of the field’, for preference, but had a vague idea that people in this world tended to consider swyving in fields weird (and possibly illegal). But now, shaken, Otto had said no. _No_ , he said, he lived nearby anyway and he wanted to go home. _Of course you do,_ Dustfinger had thought bitterly. He comforted the boy as best he could, and said farewell, resigned to never seeing him or kissing him again. But just before Otto had left, he’d turned back round and said:

“O, screw it. Will you sleep in the tents tonight or do you want to stay, um...with me?”

Now, on their way to Otto’s bed, they kissed on the front steps of the building. They kissed against the main door because Otto was half-stumbling backwards and didn’t turn in time. They kissed against the wall inside, and with Otto’s back pressed against the inside of the moving silver metal box thing that carried them to the top of the building. Then they kissed in the top stairwell with Otto’s velvet coat half hanging off (Dustfinger’s fault). They kissed at the end of the corridor where they did not hear the neighbour step out to go to her night shift, but did hear her scandalised ‘Hmph!’ a moment later. And they kissed in the doorway, trying to find Otto’s keys, and resumed kissing after pausing to greet the two mewing cats that Dustfinger tripped over anyway (“Mina and Lucy. Obligatory Goth cats”), and they stumbled in and kissed lying down across Otto’s bed, and still couldn’t stop.

 _Why haven’t I done this in ages?_ Dustfinger thought deliriously. _Why wasn’t I bloody well doing this every day, always?_ Raising the corner of the blankets, Dustfinger urged the boy under them, and began eagerly undressing him. He didn’t actually like beds, himself. But nervous lovers were generally happier wrapped in a nice private blanket than being bent over naked against a tree in broad daylight (which he’d personally have preferred, but again, he got the impression people here would find that intolerably peculiar. Their culture was very...indoor.)

Of course, he knew why he hadn’t touched anyone for ages. He’d always had the happy knack of forgetting such urges when his mind was occupied. He’d gone days and weeks, even months, travelling about the Wayless Wood and the Lombrican countryside without worrying, and been thoroughly surprised when a sudden longing to be under Roxane again eventually struck him. If he was far away, he’d given himself pleasure occasionally when that happened, which was nice enough in its own harmless way, outside in the forest with the ticklish grass whispering. _Probably good for the soil or something._ But for the most part, he wasn’t troubled by the need. Roxane, alas, had had a different nature. Wonderful in its own way...though probably not for her. _No wonder she bloody objected to my wandering off for weeks at a time. I shouldn’t have been so thoughtless._ He’d been jumped on in his own doorway more than once, returning home, getting her urgent nails in his back so hard his shoulders bled.

Then again, when Dustfinger was prompted to remember that bedding people was a hell of a lot of fun, the memory came back with a vengeance. It had always been the same with Roxane (he knew better than to arrange any fire-dancing performance for the day after he thought he’d return from travelling. They didn’t always leave the bed, or at least, leave whatever else they were using as a bed...).

A question had been bothering him all evening, though, and that was: _what would Roxane say about this?_ The situation didn’t seem exactly moral on that point. _Bloody Silvertongue and his bloody reading enchantments, forcing a man to make horrible decisions like this!_ Dustfinger missed her terribly; missed her like he couldn’t believe. If he had to explain to Roxane, he supposed, there were three things he would say to her. And he would hope she understood. One, they’d bedded other people together before now anyway (as he said, the Motley Folk were very broad-minded...), two, he would certainly have excused her if she’d done the same ( _five years. Five years!_ ), and three, he was, sadly, still unsure whether he’d ever see her again. She would understand, surely? These were circumstances neither of them could ever have predicted.

 _Besides, he even looks like Roxane_. The bizarre thought hopped into Dustfinger’s head. _Eh?_ He broke away and stared at Otto a moment, who did not seem entirely at his ease, and took this as a cue to get up and stumble about the room, putting on lights, mumbling something about not looking at the messy room and not having expected visitors. Dustfinger picked his head up and glanced about briefly. The decoration of rooms all looked the same to him, though he got the impression this one would be considered a good effort in this world. Dark blue and black, stars and moons, the smell of proper incense, expensive-looking furniture with curled legs, millions of books, odd glowing lamps, everything very tidy. And an unnecessary quantity of dark blankets and cushions, most of which Dustfinger was by now cheerfully fantasizing about ruining. He stared, though, realizing. _O Gods, it’s true._ Roxane never looked unfeminine, as such, but Otto could have passed for any gender in a dim light. They both had the same tawny skin and sloe eyes, and thick black hair. For a moment, the thought hurt him very much, and he missed Roxane more dreadfully than he ever had. _No bloody wonder I like the look of him._

Otto caught him staring.  
“What?”  
“Nothing. Only, you look like someone I know. Are you a gypsy?”  
“Erm, it’s politer to say ‘Romani’! But partially, yes. Turkish Romani, though Dad’s half-Nigerian,” Otto began fiddling with candles for a small lamp, trying to get a match to strike, “Why?”  
Dustfinger smothered laughter, “Don’t tell me you grow herbs as well?”  
“Millions, yes,” Otto gestured to the army of little pots in the windowledge, “Not brilliantly, but I keep trying.”  
Dustfinger shook his head in disbelief. _Of all the people I could have ended up bedding_...! Coincidences. Echoes of worlds in other worlds. Maybe there were echoes of them all, connected, if you looked hard enough.  
  
“Come here, lovely,” Dustfinger coaxed, feeling himself ache with a blissful agony under the covers. Concentrating on the candles a moment, he whispered under his breath, then distracted Otto by calling to him: “Stop fussing. Everything here is beautiful. You too.”  
“You _say_ that, but I hadn’t expected any guests. It’s nerves. What if you think I’m a scruffy bastard who-” Otto turned back to the lit candles and frowned, unlit match still in hand, “I _did_ just light these, didn’t I?”  
“Yes, I watched you do it,” Dustfinger lied.  
“But-”  
“Lovely, if you want to stop, of course we shall,” Dustfinger stretched out fully on the bed, and fixed him with a hard look, “But if you want to carry on, well...how am I going to pleasure you if you don’t come here?”

Otto’s eyes seem to cloud at this, unfocusing slightly as – no doubt – he formed a mental impression of this.

He stumbled towards the top end of the bed, breathing unsteady, his half-unfastened layers of shirts and waistcoats looking suddenly debauched rather than untidy. Dustfinger, to show it wasn’t just idle talk, leaned slowly toward him, not breaking eye contact, then pressed his open mouth very gently at the front of Otto’s...‘jeans’. From where he lay, it was a convenient angle, half-raised on one elbow. Careful teeth and hot breath. He knew Otto could feel the warmth and pressure through the fabric. He pressed his cheek there, then his open mouth again, almost nuzzling, genuinely eager, eyes squeezing shut as his mind increasingly pushed aside all thoughts not related to the immediate interest (which was, effectively: cock). His thumbs rested just inside each narrow hip, stroking, holding the boy gently in place, and Dustfinger had a sort of idea the metal fastening thing under his mouth could be undone like this. He ran his tongue down up the fold in the fabric, tasting a line of cold metal beneath. He caught the tiny flat fastener at the top delicately, between his teeth. _This probably won’t work,_ Dustfinger thought, trying not to grin and drop it. He moved his hands further about Otto’s body, clasping his arse, enjoying the sheer closeness of being able to take actual handfuls of someone else’s body, enjoying the very idea that someone wanted him to touch them so firmly and tightly. He drew the metal thing down carefully, the bumps in the thick cloth where the fabric strained outward making it more difficult. It became an awkward angle for his head at the end, but Dustfinger didn’t care to stop. _I’m having fun._

And there was certainly no complaint from Otto.

How to proceed? The clothes all fastened differently in this world. Dustfinger didn’t wear any under-things himself (what were they even _for?_ ), so how they worked was anyone’s guess. Experimentally, he took one hand off the boy’s backside and simply pulled everything free, unfastening the remaining button and moving cloth down and aside. And paused for a moment, happy, lips quietly pressed against the length in a simple kiss, enjoying the anticipation. He felt his own body throb hard in sympathy. One of the best things about bedding your own gender is you needn’t guess at what feels good. Otto seemed to have temporarily lost the capacity for speech. _Gratifying. It’s nice to feel good at what you do,_ Dustfinger thought, and cheerfully took it into his mouth.

The warm skin under his hand slipped down out of his grasp suddenly, and the flesh in his mouth slid, as Otto’s knees half-went out from under him. He caught himself, his hand steadying on the bedpost, but Dustfinger only sucked him thoroughly a minute more before sliding away off. _We should try a better position._ There was a whimper, an actual, honest-to-Gods deprived whimper from Otto, that Dustfinger decided was too much of a compliment to tease him about. _Anyway, I like making people whimper. It’s nice to feel needed for once._ Sitting up, he caught the boy about his middle. Neither of them were even undressed. _That isn’t good enough. I want to touch all of him._

Dustfinger looked him in the eye and told him as much.

Back under the blankets, Dustfinger made short work of both their garments. The boy’s seemed expensive; dark velvet sensual to Dustfinger’s touch, the heavy silvery buttons click-ing together as he balled up each garment and cast it aside. They were of some old-fashioned style, it seemed, but not the slashed doublets and surcoats Dustfinger recognised from his own era. ‘ _Seem Punc’, didn’t he call it?_ Dustfinger was frankly glad to be rid of his own shabby garments (‘ _Tell you what, love, the other re-enactors aren’t going for this last item on the Discount rack, and it’s in a colour nobody liked plus there’s a tear in the sleeve. We’re packing up the stalls to go. Why don’t I just let you have it for one Euro?’)._

“Wow. You’re incredibly warm.”  
“Am I?” Dustfinger feigned surprise, as their naked limbs tangled together - Gods, so beautifully – across the dark-blue sheets. Under normal circumstances, he could concentrate and keep his skin at a usual temperature. But when he lost control of himself, the heat tended to flare. Roxane used to shove him away across the sheets on hot summer nights, if he chanced to have a nightmare or an erotic dream, unable to sleep for the heat. He’d quite literally set someone’s bed on fire several times. And yes, ha-ha, all right, that made a good nudge-nudge joke after a few ales, but honestly, it was dangerous. And weird. _They don’t have fire-dancers in this world._ If it happened tonight, he wouldn’t be able to explain himself.

Otto’s thumb, now running over his cheek in patent fascination. Dustfinger twitched. The gesture was, in its own strange way, more intimate than being pressed against someone else’s naked body.  
“Those scars are _hardcore_. How did you get them? Did you piss off the Mafia or something?”  
“Something like that,” Dustfinger said, privately marvelling that he’d understood the reference.  
“Can’t believe some bastard carved you up like this.”  
Otto was kissing the scars now, eyes shut in sympathy, as if he were actually _sorry_ for him.  
“Yeah, well...you don’t want to know, trust me,” Dustfinger muttered, twitching again. Uncomfortable at this display of pity, he wrapped his arms tighter about Otto, effectively distracting himself. They were almost absent-mindedly fucking by now, facing each other, gasping between words, their hips rocking together with an irresistible, helpless ease. Trance-like, they pressed and unpressed, bodies completely fascinated with each other, roaming hands holding each other’s hips and backs steady. The rhythm was so utterly _easy_. Bodies knew what they wanted.

Dustfinger could feel the light-headedness, the bliss, fairly close already, just from the press of their cocks together, and was struck for the briefest moment with concern at how to navigate this. As far as he was concerned, peaking quickly would not be a problem – he knew from experience either he wouldn’t (not to brag, but having a career that involved training your body in very precise use of muscles tended to have a knock-on effect...) or he’d be ready again very soon. And he wasn’t sure exactly what the point of going to bed with someone and stopping after only one game was. Then again, he knew his pattern wasn’t quite usual. _Honestly. You know my last lover started with the kisses and worked up to actual swyving? You, I wake up in the morning with your tongue on my cunt then spend the next hour being tortured with chaste kisses until you bloody put it back and give me some relief!_ Roxane had exclaimed, three months into their knowing one another.  
Dustfinger had shrugged, apologetic, _Sorry. I can do something else if-_  
_Didn’t say I didn’t like it_ , she’d cut in again. It was only that, to Dustfinger, there didn’t seem to be a particular pattern that had to follow, once you were bedding someone. It didn’t have to be all one uphill struggle to a quick peak then asleep on the other side. It wasn’t that he liked deliberately tormenting people – _well no, all right, I do a bit_ – but it felt good, to be really needed. To slowly make someone beg for your body. To show they truly wanted you. And what the hell was the point of going to bed with someone who wasn’t genuinely interested in being there awhile?

Fortunately, this was hardly a problem with Otto.

Dustfinger kissed his way down the fellow’s body, without the slightest intention of hurrying. The fellow sighed and groaned under his lips, arcing reflexively. He was turning out to be just the sort of lover Dustfinger got along beautifully with. He was _built_ to respond. It took almost nothing to make him writhe about. The lightest bite on his ear, the slightest caress across the small of his olive-skinned back and he was smiling and arcing and gasping. He really didn’t care for biting and scratching, though, Dustfinger had found that much already. There were a couple of scars on his body, too, that Dustfinger had wondered at in passing – uneven scars around his fingers, scattered small burns, and what actually looked like a healed knife-wound on his middle – and Dustfinger couldn’t help but think he’d decided he didn’t care for pain after something bad had happened to him. Scars or not, though, Dustfinger peppered his narrow body with kisses, half-dead with happiness, marvelling at his luck in being allowed such an honest pleasure again. As Dustfinger slid right down the sheets on his side and settled comfortably down, positioned, got the impression the neighbours in the adjoining flats were about to be very annoyed. The boy had no inhibitions whatsoever about making a noise.

Upsetting the neighbours did not take long.

Hollow-cheeked and cheerfully moving, Dustfinger shoved the remaining blankets out of the way before he suffocated, and set about making Otto scream with a good will. He could feel his thighs tensing under his hands, and ran his hands up and down the boy’s shaking legs to find his toes starting to point already. Slowing down, he stroked softly wherever he could, hands roaming experimentally, trying to physically convey that Otto didn’t have to ‘save face’ and spare him a sore neck at any cost. _Take your time, if you like,_ he thought, _it feels much better if you just let it build._ He couldn’t think how to say this, though, or even if Otto would think he was peculiar for saying it, so he settled for slowing down and coaxing him kindly between his legs. Fingers stroking with a firm press, just... _there_ , as he sucked, and when his hand slipped and ended up further back than he’d intended, he started to have serious concerns about the windows of the flat shattering. Otto had an especially lovely tenor voice, which he was currently mis-using beautifully. So it’s like that, is it? Dustfinger could feel the hot tension winding itself up inside himself too, as he reached further forward and slipped one finger in by way of a test. The tightness of flesh there, the sheer closeness of being actually, physically inside another’s body...his imagination suddenly refused to be contained. He saw himself, on this beautiful boy, face and hips pressed right in deep at the v of his neck and the v of his legs, his loneliness being blissfully, blissfully, _blissfully_ forgotten. _But for now.._.he thought, curling his index finger back towards himself and swirling his tongue about the soft-hard flesh in his mouth.

Dustfinger glanced up, having identified some actual words in the stream of broken gasping. Flushed the most gorgeous colour, Otto managed to gasp out a few more.  
“I can’t, can’t...um, you might want to...can’t...last...”  
“Bloody don’t, then?” Dustfinger replied wickedly, and promptly replaced his mouth. He gripped the desperately-arcing hips, not wishing to be choked, and with a rush of deep pleasure, felt the hands buried in his hair start to clutch convulsively at his head. Half a minute more, and that was it.

With a gratifying cry, Otto positively tore at the bedsheets beside Dustfinger’s head, body shuddering with such obvious sweetness Dustfinger felt torn between pride and envy. He swallowed instinctively, tongue finding the back of his mouth tasting surprisingly inoffensive, and didn’t stop moving his mouth until he was sure, until Otto moaned softly and gently pushed his head away, too sensitive for any more. He planted a final kiss on it, cheekily, and slid up the sheets again.

They had not been lying there long, stickily trying to get their breath back, Otto’s face buried in the crook of his neck, when a sudden furry weight pounced onto Dustfinger. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

“What the...?!”

But Otto was jerked to his senses, abruptly raising himself up on his elbows and coaxing the enthusiastic cat over to his side of the bed. He apologised profusely. Crumpled midnight-blue sheets dimpled under paws as the black cat padded over, purring like a miniature thunderstorm. Dustfinger watched her, amused. _I wonder how Gwin’s doing, back at the campsite? Suppose it’s all right to wonder. They’re terribly tender-hearted about pets here, even by my standards._ Did utterly horrific things to all the other animals behind closed doors, of course, shutting the little chickens up in nightmarish great metal sheds, stuffed into stinking wire boxes until they all turned insane from lack of sunlight and, shrieking, pecked each other’s eyes out. You saw a lot, peering into what you'd thought were countryside barns for somewhere to sleep. _What a bloody hypocrisy - how typically like this world._  
“Sorry,” Otto apologized again, scratching the adoring cat behind the ears, “Mina always wants to jump on the bed afterwards and cuddle, right on cue. They can sense it.”  
“Sense what?”  
“Well, pheromones or something, I suppose.”  
“Eh?!”  
“You making me come” Otto translated, blushing beautifully. And he placed the cat aside with great gentleness and turned his attention back to Dustfinger, just as Dustfinger was wondering how to remind him that he really _did_ need his attention now, about a particular matter that was feeling more urgent by the minute.

Quickly, Otto’s mouth on his and his hands on his...on his...  
Dustfinger began thrusting languidly, into the fellow’s very clever, very neat hand, trying to set the pace as he liked. Otto’s kisses seemed inexplicably deeper now, more sure and less frantic. And when he bit down on Dustfinger’s lip...  
“Ah!”  
“Sorry, sorry.”  
“No...s’good. _More_ ,” he said with a wicked grin, beyond caring whether he was being judged on his tastes and considered strange. The flesh reached a stage where mild pains became little stabs of pleasure, and he couldn’t help but like the feel of it. It felt sincere, somehow. Like a lover was giving him their full attention. Like they cared enough to hurt him correctly _. I don’t know what you people consider normal in bed, in your horrible, ugly, confusing, hypocritical world. I don’t give a damn either._ But at least there was this. Warmth and joy and his own slow-heaving breaths resonant in his ears, and the unbearable slide of pleasure at every move of Otto’s deft fingers – this was the same in every world. This, he didn’t need to find the right specific words for, or know any mysterious social rules for. This was just...

“Please, _please_ ,” he found himself murmuring, his whole body jolting with sweetness at Otto’s obliging teeth nipping his neck. Who or what he was pleading with, he hadn’t the faintest idea, unless it was just willing his own body to release, but he wanted, he _wanted_ now, o Gods he _wanted_. The hands of both of them were eagerly clutching and stroking and grasping and caressing, uncertain whether they were teaching or assisting or pleasuring or holding on for dear life or anything else, but adoring it all the same. _I want I want o yes I want...please.._.  
Woodsmoke, Otto’s tousled hair smelled of clean woodsmoke. Dustfinger’s face was buried in it, eyes forced shut and mouth forced open, by pleasure, breathing hard. The campfire and the outdoors and the wildness of the fields and forest and...

Otto whispered in his ear, something very obscene and very kind.  
“ _Ah_!”  
And then it was happening, it was _happening_ , a sudden rush of utter glory. It raced along every nerve. He bucked unabashedly, riding out the agonizing loveliness. Otto’s sides were hot under his own tight, clutching hands, body moving in sympathy.

Dustfinger drew a deep, dry-mouthed breath as he felt the tense joy wind its way down. The traces it left behind in his limbs and shaken body were ridiculously good, a kind of pleasured fiery glow that almost had him pushing his tangled hair out of his eyes and checking himself to be sure it wasn’t actually visible. _You never know_. The fire did not obey him properly here, of course, but he didn’t know exactly how it would behave in every situation.

Otto was reaching across the bed, comical and lovely as he leaned nakedly off the edge of it. He was rummaging in the drawer of the small table by the bed, and after a few curses and an awkward moment, he produced a small clean white towel.  
“Not black? Everything else in here is,” Dustfinger mumbled, using it for what he certainly hoped was the intended purpose.  
Otto gave him a withering look, “Trust me, _this_ towel needs to be white.”

He scrubbed at his hand a moment, though if the mood and timing had been different, Dustfinger would have contemplated sucking each finger clean. But they were weird about what was and wasn’t dirty, in this world. He was just glad the campsite near the Fayre had had warm showers, and he’d decided by sheer chance to take one this morning. He was conscious that everyone in this world expected everyone else to be groomed and perfumed with fifty different bottles of horrible chemicals from the alchemist’s. Dustfinger did try and remember to conform to the expectation here (even if, in Lombrica, excessive bathing was considered unhealthy and you just got used to people smelling like people), but it was hard to tell what was and wasn’t considered a problem. _Especially since they have the most disgusting habits themselves, people in this world._ Like putting the cleanest thing in the house right beside the dirtiest thing in the house, both together in the bathroom, instead of designing them to be at opposite ends of the house like a sane person! And eating-houses where people didn’t bring their own personal knife to eat with, but ate all off the same knives and spoons that had been in hundreds of mouths...! Really, it was insane, what people considered normal here.

Otto cast the towel aside. With perfect timing, two cats now leapt onto the bed, purring and purring. Dustfinger occupied himself petting them, since it actually was quite a soothing thing to do whilst tired. Otto soon nestled down beside him in what he fancied was contentment ( _but he’s probably just putting up with me now, isn’t he? Maybe he wants me to leave now. It’s not as though he actually likes me)._

“O. I thought it was an urban myth,” Otto remarked mildly, tapping a finger thoughtfully to his tongue.  
“What was?”  
“I didn’t know what I tasted like, until just then. Until in your mouth. I mean, you get these stupid lists on trashy websites, top ten things about vegans, and they say all this nonsense about how eating pineapples and stuff and not eating animals makes...um, it...taste different.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah, but I thought it was all made-up crap.”  
“Perhaps it is. Maybe you just taste how you taste and it’s got nothing to do with you being a...a...” Dustfinger cast about for the word. Vegans? Weren’t those the people at the Medieval Fayres who really liked putting pointy five-sided stars on things, and burning incense, and worshipping trees stark naked and all? _Nice people,_ Dustfinger thought approvingly, _we agree on many points._

Otto blinked good-naturedly at him, “How can you _not_ know what a vegan is?”  
Dustfinger shrugged, sullen at being caught out. _As usual._  
“Why d’you think I had one ale, earlier, instead of the mead? I mean, even people who hate us – which is a lot of people – know what we are just so they can take the piss.”  
This was an expression, Dustfinger understood, which actually did not have anything to do with relieving yourself. It meant something like ‘making a mockery’.  
“It just means I don’t like being a dick to animals and hurting them, that’s all. So I don’t buy things that do. Though, to be fair, I don’t know anyone that actually likes hurting animals either - they just feel they have to, or haven’t thought about an alternative before. Or hadn’t realised they were hurting them so much.”  
“Ah,” Dustfinger nodded understanding, grudgingly, though he felt his mind light up with sudden pleasure at actually having something explained to him _. I’m not stupid, you know. I just don’t understand this world very well. I know enough to get by, but..._ He was struck, too, by how much he actually liked knowing about Otto. It felt, very, very strange, to ask questions about someone here – someone who wasn’t Capricorn or Silvertongue – and actually care about the answer.

“Where _is_ it you come from, again?” Otto asked softly, tracing something invisible on his chest with an absent-minded index finger. It tickled. “Dusty?”  
It took Dustfinger a moment to realise the boy was addressing him. He’d lied about his name, because he knew it was considered very bizarre here. He’d stopped telling people it after someone had mis-heard and sniggered and asked in a way he hadn’t liked one bit if ‘Lustfinger here was some kind of Porns Tar’. He didn’t like being laughed at, not unless it was deliberate. And anyway, it was yet another thing about him that made him distinctive, and that wasn’t good if Capricorn and Basta took it into their heads to get hold of him. Even so, not using his real name made him extremely sad, in a way he couldn’t quite explain.  
“Your German’s almost perfect and I can’t place your accent,” Otto persisted, “You can’t be from that far away.”  
“Eh? Why shouldn’t I be?”  
“Well, look at you. Not a foreigner like me. Got to be northern European of some sort,” Otto nuzzled up to him, smirking, “Earlier, I might’ve said your hair was bleached lighter but, uh...well, it _isn’t.”_  
It took Dustfinger a moment to realize how he knew that. When he did, he couldn’t help smirk along at the boy’s stupid bawdy jokes. _We’d have got along, he and I, if we’d met in Lombrica. And Roxane. We’d all have laughed at the same sort of nonsense together._

But he answered the boy, “I told you. You won’t have heard of it.”  
“Yeah, but I can find it on Googlemaps.”  
“I doubt that you’ll see it on a map, oogly or otherwise. Look, can we talk about something else? I don’t like thinking about home,” Dustfinger rushed the last sentence out hurriedly, swallowing the emotion at the end, willing himself not to break down and say more. Otto would consider him completely mad if he gave himself away, certainly. He’d throw him out immediately. Dustfinger had briefly stayed at the houses of a few good-nature re-enactor types and charitable people before now, when the weather was really bad for sleeping outdoors, and he knew the way they started looking at him if he gave unexpected answers to their questions about himself. Being vague wasn’t much better, he knew, because then they just got suspicious that he was hiding some terrible crime or dark thing in his past. But it was the lesser of two evils.

And it pained _him_ less.

Fortunately, despite his sullenness (and he knew he was being very sullen, unfairly so, towards someone whose arm probably still had cramp on his account), Otto did not get ill-tempered at him.  
“I’m very sorry.”  
“S’all right,” Dustfinger muttered.  
“I misjudged it. I was aiming to say something more meaningful than obligatory vegan bisexual sausage jokes.”  
“Than what?”  
“Well, it’s usually where conversations about my being vegan go. Especially if I’m bed. You know – _har har, I bet there’s only one kind of sausage he still eats, har har_!...the usual.”

Dustfinger surprised himself by bursting out laughing. It was a bloody stupid joke, but he really wanted to be able to laugh at one.

A companionable silence. Dustfinger fell to absent-mindedly caressing the boy’s chest, thoughts drifting (pleasantly for once), until a sharp intake of breath alerted him to the fact he’d just tweaked somewhere very sensitive without realising. He slid down the pillows a little, interested, and after a moment’s more caressing, replaced his fingers with his mouth. His tongue flicked hard and slow awhile, as he felt two eager hands clutch at the back of his head, encouraging.

He returned to kissing the boy, tormenting him, just brushing their parted lips together then drawing back. After a minute, Otto moaned with frustration, but at his trying to pull Dustfinger closer, Dustfinger firmly caught up both his wrists in one deft movement and pinned them to the sheets. And cheerfully carried on tormenting him just the same. At this, Otto called him an unpleasant name, but Dustfinger saw it was clear from his expression and tone he meant it playfully. _All part of the game._

Dustfinger carried on, and only saw to fit to stop when Otto was almost in tears with frustration. He would have stopped, of course, if this drawn-out way hadn’t been to Otto’s liking. But by the heave of his shoulders and the clouded look of his black eyes, it was plain Otto had no objection to having things drawn out in this manner.

“Want to alarm the neighbours again?” Dustfinger murmured, in between sucking bruises into the fellow’s smooth shoulder.  
“ _Mm_? Do wha’?”  
“The screaming,” Dustfinger ran his tongue along the length of the fellow’s collarbone, thoroughly enjoying himself, “The people in the other flats are probably embarrassed.”  
Otto stopped and frowned a moment.  
“I’m not _that_ bad, am I?”  
Dustfinger snorted, “Like a little _vixen_.”  
“Like what?”  
Dustfinger sighed inwardly. _Doesn’t anyone in this world know anything about animals and trees and things? Really, it’s not me that’s ignorant; it’s you people._  
“Foxes. Vixens. They shriek when they...o, look, never mind...” and he substituted a kiss for an explanation. Otto seemed happy enough to forget, judging by the way his hips were bucking up at him already. Dustfinger teased awhile longer, not certain whether he was more teasing Otto with deprivation or teasing himself _watching_ Otto be deprived.

“How, then?” he whispered eventually.  
The boy already had his legs mostly about him, and merely tensed his thighs, gripping.  
“Like this,” he murmured, eyes half-closed and voice low, like he found his own embarrassment at openly asking for it arousing. _Not that you need be ashamed, but I’d gladly oblige_. He rolled them both over fully, facing Otto, so the boy was on his back, knees trembling on either side of him. Dustfinger was suddenly struck at his own good fortune. That someone had been kind enough to stop and talk to him, to find out that he could still be trusted despite his mysterious foreignness, to see him as _worth_ their kisses...

“Wait, if we’re going to...” the boy said suddenly, but he left the sentence unfinished. The only noise then was the hurried opening and slamming of a drawer in the table beside the bed. He dropped a little coloured square on the sheets. About two inches square and flat, with a sort of circular shape raised up against the foil inside. Yellow.

Dustfinger frowned at it, wondering what on earth it was.

“Should’ve used one earlier, strictly speaking,” Otto sighed, shifting about impatiently, “Even if they are annoying because the flavours never taste like what they’re supposed to.”  
_But what is it?!_ Dustfinger stared at the little foil shape desperately, willing it to give him a clue. There was an unfamiliar word on it but he was in no fit state to try and puzzle out letters he’d never seen before. _Maybe it’s a sweet._ Otto’d just mentioned flavours, after all. Sugary things came in little foil packets here, didn’t they? Yellow...yellow...lemons? Was it like Basta with the peppermint? _No, that can’t be it. If Otto thought I should taste of lemons, he’d have said so long ago._

_Also, I really don’t want to think about Basta at this precise moment, thank you!_

“What’s wrong, Dusty?” Otto frowned.  
He suppressed a grimace of annoyance at being called the wrong name, “Err...I’ve just never seen one before...”  
“Eh?!”  
“Er, I mean, I never saw one of this precise type,” Dustfinger amended hurriedly. Apparently, not knowing what one of these was wasn’t ok. Otto began apologetically mumbling something about ‘Hate Chivie’, but it only added to Dustfinger’s confusion. Who was Chivie? Why should he be hated, and what the hell did that have to do with pleasuring Otto?  
“This hesitation isn’t some roundabout way of telling me I should’ve bought the larger size, is it?” Otto said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. He glanced down briefly, “Because – and I’m not being funny here, I swear - my friend managed to get one right onto her head once at a party, and much as I’m having fun, I don’t think either of us is gifted enough to merit...I mean, you’re in-proportion for a tall fellow, but...”  
“Eh?” Dustfinger hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about. ‘Onto her head’? _Is it a hat? A kind of tiny hat?_

He began to hate the square. It was mocking him.

“It’s all right. I already took one,” he tried, wondering if that was one of a range of possible answers. _Maybe it’s a kind of giant pill?_  
“Took one from where?”  
“The...library...?” Dustfinger hazarded, thinking inexplicably of books.  
Otto squinted at him, “Didn’t know they were running an open clinic there.”  
“Um...”  
“Look, if you really, _really_ don’t want to...” Otto appeared to wrestle privately with an idea for a moment, and his voice was still cracking with longing when he spoke, “I can trust you, yes? I’m clean, but if you’ve ever gone in for any drugs and there’s been a shared needle somewhere, and caught something, that’s, um, kind of my career gone. You’re totally, _totally_ sure we don’t need one?”  
Dustfinger finally had an inkling of what he was asking about.  
“O, _that_. Right! No.”  
Otto hesitated.  
“I really would never do that to someone,” Dustfinger said sincerely.  
It did briefly occur to him, as Otto promptly pulled him down onto him with extreme eagerness, that Lombrica surely did have plagues and illnesses and things they didn’t here. On they other hand, they probably hadn’t all been hiding undetected in his trousers for five years.

The drawer beside the bed opened again presently, and after swearing and rummaging a moment, a small bottle was produced. Thankfully, this was a much more intuitive object. Dustfinger received it, scrabbled for the cork, remembered things didn’t have corks here, swore, kissed a writhing Otto to stop him exploding from deprivation in the meantime, found a snag in the plastic top, lost it, found it again, got it lodged painfully under his thumbnail as he flicked it open, and _finally_ poured a thin stream of the oil where it was supposed to go.

He pressed their foreheads together as he positioned both their bodies. When he slid in, could hardly believe how good it felt. Under him, Otto made the most fantastic noise, throwing back his head again the pillow, locks of hair scattering. Dustfinger stilled a moment, appreciating. It came to him, dimly, that it was still a shame everyone here thought doing this outside was some kind of freakish, perverse proposition – beds were dull, muffled places to enjoy a lover compared to having a starry sky and a whispering breeze moving the ticklish grass. Back home, finding a private corner of the nearest woodlands had been entirely normal. _Still, I haven’t the slightest complaint,_ he thought firmly, his whole body thrilling at Otto’s scrabbling to catch at his hips and make him swyve – _sorry, fuck_ – him properly. They began to move together.

The pace was ridiculously sweet, waves of a comforting, satisfying pleasure following one another with a perfect steadiness. Otto moaned, and the bite of pain on Dustfinger’s back as he clawed unthinkingly was read by his body as sharp pleasure. Dustfinger gasped, relishing it. Presently, they were completely away, caught up together in a clever rhythm, going and going and hoping never to stop. Otto’s legs undecided as to whether to cross about Dustfinger’s hips and hold him urgently in place, or to sprawl wantonly open, allowing him as deep as he could go. Dustfinger hardly minded either way. A few moments more, and he took a deep breath, controlled himself, and slowed down. Otto called him another unpleasant name, rather more loudly than last time. But he was half-laughing, half-gasping, one hand across his own brow and eyes as if to try and keep some semblance of composure. Which he lost, when Dustfinger shifted position and angled his hips differently, and began slowly striking him inside in a way that – once again – made Dustfinger fear for the flat’s windows.

Otto writhed under him, pitifully beautiful as they continued at this pace. Once, Dustfinger leaned down for a kiss, liking the uninhibited, messy, close way that kisses were at this stage. Then he straightened up and caught sharp hold of Otto’s hips, serious now. He realized, in random epiphany, he was not remotely close to tiring. _You’d think, after five years..._ But what most people did not realize was that nobody could be a good fire-dancer or juggler who easily got sore arms and legs after five minutes. Training in it resulted in a particular wiry, flexible strength and...ability to make a lot of firm, quick, repetitive movements without tiring. Roxane had not been above ribald jokes about it. _Imagine if we made you juggle with your tongue too, she’d observed dryly._ He pulled Otto’s body close and thought, _then perhaps it’s no surprise after all._

Otto was very close now, he could feel it. By the way he tensed and clawed Dustfinger’s back, incoherent, there was nothing he wanted more than to just be made to...to...Dustfinger opened his eyes and saw him clearly, and was so taken at the sight of him in ecstasy he quickly found himself in the same boat. The boy’s cries has turned to the sort of broken, shameless groans that simply didn’t sound like anything else. Dustfinger watched him in fascination as he tensed unbearably under the steady waves of sweetness hitting him, and lay poised a split-second, eyes suddenly open in disbelief, before his body seemed to convulse about Dustfinger’s own. The old delicious mix of pride and envy, watching him come. Slick ( _apparently fairly plain-tasting, if that’s to be believed..._ ) warmth on Dustfinger’s middle, and he was ready to let go himself. And then...

It was an unexpectedly beautiful orgasm. By luck, the shocks from the boy’s body with his own dazed motions hit the perfect places at the perfect moments. _O gods yes...yes...!_ Gorgeously, it was drawn out and _out_ , each twitch adding yet more waves of bliss onto the end of the ebbing tide. Dustfinger gasped with it, tossing his head freely, overwhelmed with this surprising joy.

 _Sheer luck, really,_ he thought, tumbling unsteadily to the sheets as the last few shocks finally left him. _First time with someone new isn't usually so._ He lay, temporarily stunned, whilst Otto rolled over to press against his side, looking (if he was honest) about as shaky as he was. Dustfinger stretched, listening to his own breath slowing. His whole body seemed to have turned sweet. He barely moved as Otto reached down for the blankets now crumpled at the foot of the bed and half falling off, and pulled them over them both again. He found himself gazing into the boy’s lovely face with a look of faint disbelief, wondering what, in this world, people were supposed to say at a time like this. He might crack a joke, just to show that what they’d shared was only physical after all, and no call to get all emotional about (except, inexplicably, he didn’t want to crack a joke). He might stay gruff and silent. He might start talking about something totally different. He might make a comment - though ‘Thank you,’ was not OK. It made it sound like a business transaction.

(And he didn’t want to re-live all that, not after the first month in this world. Juggling equipment was expensive. The money to buy it hadn’t exactly just been growing on the trees. _Some professions are the same in every world, I suppose_ , he’d sighed to himself, back then, silently hating everyone who’d thought it was somehow ok to buy someone else’s body – even as he’d admitted to himself he should be glad of the quick way make money. He knew Roxane would never grudge what he’d done out of sheer financial necessity, and there was no point in bewailing what had happened, but...those first few weeks weren’t exactly one of his favourite memories, all the same.)

Luckily, Otto decided for them how to break the silence.  
“You really are very hot.”  
Dustfinger understood this to be a form of complement. “Why, thank you.”  
“No, I mean you’re _actually_ hot,” Otto promptly pushed the covers aside again, sweating slightly, “Are you _sure_ this is normal? This is like a fever of a hundred and four here...” he said with touching concern, pressing a slender hand to Dustfinger’s brow.  
“I really am fine,” Dustfinger assured him, still getting his breath back, “It’s nothing out-of-the-ordinary for me.”  
“Also, I noticed it before, but, um...also...hot...?” and Otto shifted a little against the sheets, wincing slightly, “Weird.”  
After a moment, Dustfinger realised why. He’d forgotten. Roxane had done the very same, immediately after the first few times they’d bedded each other. _What the hell is this? Lava? she’d giggled, this is what I get for swyving fire-dancers, isn’t it?_ As far as Dustfinger knew (having never gone to bed with another fire-dancer himself, and only having touched it with his fingers), it wasn’t actually warm enough to burn or cause pain, it just felt strange for a moment or two until it cooled down to the temperature of the surrounding body. That was the problem with magical abilities. _You can never tell which ones will have unexpected side effects._

Dustfinger also found his eye drawn to a peculiar blackish mark on the sheets under his cheek. Twitching upright slightly, he realised it was a scorched patch in the cotton, where his hand had been when they both peaked. He quickly repositioned the pillow down over it a few inches lower whilst Otto lay recovering, eyes closed in contentment. Dustfinger hoped to hell he wouldn’t notice the faint smell of burnt cotton. _Probably a miracle I didn’t set fire to him the first time round..._

He placed a lazy kiss on the boy’s face, enjoying the closeness. Soon – tomorrow or even tonight - Otto would want him gone. The feeling of resentment and resistance this notion caused caught him utterly off-guard. He didn’t want to go. Usually he was only too glad to smirk and snap at people, and make them go away. Tonight, he realized he didn’t want to be left alone anymore.

If Basta found out about him, though, he’d hurt him. _Just for fun_. Dustfinger hadn’t wanted to think the thought, but it couldn’t exactly unthink itself now he had. Basta and his friends liked destroying anything they thought he cared about. That would mean Otto too, if Dustfinger by some miracle took to seeing him again. Which he of course wouldn’t. Otto didn’t really like him that much, did he? And it was a bad idea. And Dustfinger would feel incredibly guilty getting into another relationship, instead of...

_Well, that’s Roxane properly betrayed now, isn’t it?_

That was what tonight signified.

As if he’d admitted to himself that he wasn’t going home. Plants couldn’t put down roots in two places at once. You uprooted them and moved them to their new spot - either they thrived, or they curled up and died. But they couldn’t remain rooted in two places at once. To admire this boy was to admit there would never be any seeing Roxane again, and suddenly, he couldn’t bear it. It overwhelmed him.

“Are you OK? Have I said something to offend you?” Otto blinked, trying to twine himself about Dustfinger and finding he wasn’t twining back.  
“Excuse me,” Dustfinger muttered, getting up from the bed. He didn’t know what he wanted or what would stop the rising pain of sadness in him, only that he couldn’t bear lying here besides this glorious, kind, sweet-natured boy anymore.  
“Hey. You all right, Dusty?”

That was it.

 _He doesn’t even know my bloody name because I can’t bloody tell him because every bloody idiot here will think I’m mad!_ He rose and stumbled about the hallway uselessly a moment, cats underfoot, until he found the bathroom. He shoved the door harder than he meant, and it slammed behind him. And he slid down, his back pressed to it, silently despairing. As the tears started and refused to stop, the only other sound was Otto knocking softly on the door, and asking with the greatest concern if he was all right.

And calling him, over and over, by _completely_ the wrong name...

**Author's Note:**

> Dustfinger’s a little swearier and more graphic here, I think. ‘Inkheart’ was a (wonderful) children’s book, but it was obliged by genre constraints not to have characters swearing their asses off or bonking graphically between scenes. Even if, realistically, I think a lot of us guessed that Capricorn’s men wouldn’t *just*make the women they abducted and enslaved do their laundry; even if, realistically, a lot of fans don’t seem to think Dustfinger comes off as exactly straight, vanilla and monogamous (seriously, fanfiction must’ve paired him with just about every other ‘Inkheart’ character bar Gwin...and even then someone’s probably written terrifying Crack!fic about that...)
> 
> The Leipzig Wave Gotik Treffen is a real event, by the way; a music festival with a huge attached Mediaeval/Renn Faire. Goths and re-enactors frolic together in harmonious revelry, for four days straight each May, drinking wine made from unpronounceable berries. The attendees are basically real-life Motley Folk. You can bet your anything there’s nowhere in Europe Dustfinger (or ‘Staubfinger’, as he is, since I was going with some aspects of the original German translation here) would rather hang out at.
> 
> I have plans for a mini plot arc, but I don’t know whether to bother? Only 2 -3 chapters, since I have other writing to do. What do you folks think? 
> 
> Feedback and constructive criticism appreciated, because I haven’t written fanfic in YEARS. Be gentle with me! Thank you.


End file.
